i suspect that the oil drain line on my 10AE is begining to give up the ghost. there are drops of oil on the braided section of the line, on the wastegate actuator and a thin coating of oil on the twin scroll actuator's flange and the heat shield on the lower section of the exhaust manifold facing the rear of the vehicle. two questions here. number one, do you guys believe that the drain line is the culprit? i have no leaks above the turbocharger driping oil down onto the spots listed. and two, if the drain line is the culprit can it be removed and replaced with the listed lower heat shield removed and the turbo still mounted to the engine? i recently replaced the turbo with a used one from another member and re-used my old lines after cleaning them and polishing them with a wire wheel on the bench grinder. here are the enclosed pics of the oil leak and suspect areas.

 

could just be the gaskets. I absolutely hate turbo oil return lines (ever tried reinstalling the two on an FD?), they are one of the most frustrating things to fabricate and/or install

 

most likely the flange and/or gasket.

 

i did re-use the gaskets on the drain line. i did however use rtv black on each side of the gasket mating to the turbo. i cleaned the flange before assembly with brake cleaner. the bolts were torqued down properly and the heat shield was definatly used. i do wonder though if when i was cleaning it with the wire wheel that i put a pin hole or two in the brazing. i didnt see any sign of that. and i did clean the line thoroughly with brake cleaner and i did not notice any drips from the brazed areas.

 

how often do the drain lines fail and is it possible the brazing could have worn away without visible evidence?

 

i've never seen/heard of one fail. i'd redo the gasket. i dont really trust rtv on the return line. to big of a chance that it could leak into the opening and clog the turbo. i normally just cut my return gasket with gasket paper from local autoparts stores with no RTV

 

thank you for the advice. perhaps i'll order a new gasket. is there any way the line can be accessed without removing the turbo?

 

any way at all to get to it without removing the turbo? i wont be able to get to it until monday so i'm looking to get a good heads up on the thing before i dive back into it.

 

I don't know how stock your setup is, but I've pulled installed and removed the stock oil return line a couple times with the turbo still on. But I didn't have all the stock heatshields and crap on there.

 

its all stock except for the top heatshield.

 

i dont know how you guys that have taken it off with the turbo still in place did it. i tried but just ended up removing the turbo yesterday and replacing the gasket and line. i dorve it a little and the oil feed line gasket was leaking. i took it off and cleaned everything and re-sealed the gasket with a light coat of rtv copper. i'm going to order a new gasket as i really dont like rtv around oil inlets. i'm going to take the car for a short drive this morning and i'll post back as to whether the problems have been fixed.

 

still leaks. appears to be leaking oil form the feed and drain line gaskets. new gaskets should be shipped to my door by the middle of next week. we'll see if that helps solve the problem.

 

my tube is leaking as well, its a bitch to get to

 

the turbo should be removed to get at the drain line. my issue was faulty gaskets, not the actual drain line itself. i've been leak free since july of 08.

 

Mine is leaking too, but its because the flange was decked/lapped but it looks like someone f'ed up and it got ground at an angle, tried using rtv, and it worked for a while, but now it's leaking again. You can get at it from the bottom, but its a pain, maybe cause I've done if a few times now it's easier. I'm going to pull the turbo and tap it and be done with it.

Get one of those socket u-joint things, very handy...

This is and old thread.